We get through a lot of sweeties in my house. In fact, our impressive sweetie jar takes pride of place on our coffee table in the centre of our living room! It attracts a lot of attention from guest who -like my other half and I- seem impervious to resist the colourful e-number riddled goodies within. My favourites are raspberry mushrooms (Tesco's not ASDAs) whilst my fiancé prefers strawberry laces (specifically the Chewits ones available in Home Bargains) and foam bananas. There's one sweetie manufacturer that we do agree upon however -and that, of course, is Haribo.
Fortunately we have differing preferences, and whilst he likes their rings and eggs most, I love the little white and black men (oo-er). But, we do get a bit bored from time to time with the selection available in the tangfastics, starmix and super mix, so it's always a welcome surprise when a new variety comes to town. Last year saw the release of the frenzy edition, which included an array of unusual flavours such as: apricot, pineapple, mandarin, grapefruit, passion fruit, watermelon, lime, and pomegranate. I enjoyed the tropical edge that these new fruity flavours provided and was sad to see them disappear towards the end of the year.
Thankfully a new take on the frenzy edition is back this year -with a slightly different selection of flavours. The apricot, watermelon, lime, grapefruit and pineapple are back, but 2016 sees the addition of peach, mango, and banana too. As a fan of all three new fruits I was rather excited by the new carnival!
And so I was right to be. The new peach hearts remind me of Robinson's peach squash, awaking age old memories of never-ending sunny summer evenings after school. The mango sweets taste like Solero ice lollies; sweet and artificial but admittedly delicious. My favourite however was of course the new (blue!) banana flavoured bear. Banana jelly/jelly sweets aren't easy to come by, and the flavour instantly transported me to back to an odd dessert that my Gran used to regularly make called banana chartreuse (which included banana, cream and lime jelly!).
Although I was keen on these new Haribo sweeties, my other half wasn't convinced. He's a stickler for the original flavours, which I see as a bonus for me as I get to enjoy them all!
8/10
Who says Birthday cake has to be resigned to just celebratory days? Not me! Well, unless you count the fact that I found these Birthday Cakes M&Ms reduced as a special occasion -it certainly made me happy! At 79p instead of £1.29, I finally picked up a bag of the enticingly special looking American candies that I've been surreptitiously eyeing up every time I've been into a WHSmith store.
It's needless to say that I had no idea what to expect from these M&M's. How could sugar coated chocolate taste of cake?
The 39.7g bag contained 24 little candies (if America is going to be precise with the weight, I'll be precise with my counting!) in red, yellow and blue. Are these the traditional birthday cake colours? Apparently so!
The inside of the M&Ms didn't give any clue as to their uniqueness, looking exactly the same as the standard variety. I let out an audible sigh with my first bite, and this was my train of thought:
Milk chocolate. Poor quality milk chocolate. I've been duped. What's the point?
Not wanting to waste my money, I decided to munch my way through the rest of the bag. Then, I started to notice a fudgy, buttercream flavour starting to build. I can't promise that I didn't imagine it, but the M&M's certainly started to taste better and better, and by the end of the bag I wanted more. Yummy.
The Birthday Cake M&Ms were surprisingly good, and I would happily buy another bag -but only at the reduced cost. This isn't just because I'm a cheap skate, but also because the peanut butter flavour is still my favourite, and B&M sell them at a reasonable 79p per pack too.
7/10
